


Will and Kirjava, After

by songsofthespring



Category: His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman
Genre: Angst, Epilogue, F/M, POV Will, True Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-14
Updated: 2014-08-14
Packaged: 2018-02-13 02:35:40
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,578
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2133885
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/songsofthespring/pseuds/songsofthespring
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It’s so hard to remember now, through the anguish, that he’s meant to be building a Republic of Heaven. It had been so clear with Lyra, even with tears on his cheeks and horror in his heart, in that moment they’d decided that they must be parted and grow old and have long healthy lives rather than stay together and burn out, both of them, like candle flames, one destroyed by illness, the other by the absence of their love. He thinks of Baruch and Balthamos and knows with all his heart that if had to see Lyra slowly slip away from him that way he would have died inside and out and gone with her. This reminder does not make their separation any easier.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Will and Kirjava, After

**Author's Note:**

> An epilogue of sorts to where The Amber Spyglass leaves off with Will. I just finished it today, and frankly, it was very upsetting so I felt like I needed to write something. Maybe I'll write something longer someday, but for now this is what popped out.

Kirjava and Will don’t speak much. They are not like Lyra and Pan, both of them eager to open their heart to one another. Kirjava was not with Will when he was a child, when he was in desperate need of a companion, in those days when his mother needed him more than he needed her. Instead, she stares at him with dark feline eyes. But Will has never been one for talking and solitude, whether he likes it or not, follows him like the Death he never saw.

With Lyra, he could have had company, for she was more familiar and dear to him than anything, even, in some ways, his own daemon. Pan too, Pan, whom he had touched and spoken of fear with. With Lyra, he could have been someone else. But without her, the silence is deafening.

Mary helps, as she promised she would. He can speak to her about things he can tell no one else in this world, and she had met her daemon even later than Will had, though her situation was quite different. But Mary could not fill the hole, the ache, that was Lyra’s place in his heart, and Mary could not stroke his Kirjava like Lyra could.

And one afternoon, it’s too much. He hadn’t cried when he left her, though she had, and he brushes the place on his cheek where her tear had stuck to his skin, and he remembers that he is without her, that his only adventure left is to try to take care of his mother and to try to be brave for Mary and take care of her too, and he weeps.

He remembers Lyra’s howl, the way she had fought against the truth with all she had, and he had been so angry and still. And still.

He knows nothing he does will change it, that weeping now will not make it any harder or easier to be without her, but he cannot help but feel he has failed her in this. He is not meant to mourn her all his life; he is meant to live a full life, one with meaning and purpose. That is what he told Lyra he would do, and doubtless she is already on her way to doing it herself, and here he is, sobbing into the bedspread.

It’s so hard to remember now, through the anguish, that he’s meant to be building a Republic of Heaven. It had been so clear with Lyra, even with tears on his cheeks and horror in his heart, in that moment they’d decided that they must be parted and grow old and have long healthy lives rather than stay together and burn out, both of them, like candle flames, one destroyed by illness, the other by the absence of their love. He thinks of Baruch and Balthamos and knows with all his heart that if had to see Lyra slowly slip away from him that way he would have died inside and out and gone with her. This reminder does not make their separation any easier.

And then Kirjava is with him. She is awkward, approaches him slowly in short staccato bursts of movement, because she feels his grief as keenly as he does, and grieves herself for Pantalaimon and Lyra, but her presence is a reminder of all that transpired, and she does not wish to bring him any more sorrow.

But Will desperately needs someone with him, and who better than his daemon? Lyra was never truly alone because she had Pan with her, and isn’t it the same with Will and Kijava?

He clutches her close, and though she flexes her claws in warning, she allows it, and then she says, “Will, I am sorry that I left you, that Pan and I kept our distance all that time. I feel as if I am a stranger to you.”

Will’s sobs are ebbing, and he sits up to wipe at his face, eager for the distraction of conversation. Kirjava slips into his lap and settles there. “I know why you did.” Will says, stroking her fur, “I left you behind, even when I didn’t really know you at all. But I knew you were there, and I left you anyways. And then you were alone, and you didn’t even have a name then.”

“Yes,” says Kirjava. “But Will, as much as you hide from others you cannot hide from your own self. And that is what I am.”

And so Will tells her. About the years and years before he knew she existed, before she knew herself. His childhood, that seems a lifetime ago now, and his mother, and the way he had known that he had to take care of her, and the games they used to play.

She listens and flicks her tail at some parts of the story and purrs in anothers, and Will talks until he starts to lose his voice.

“Someday,” Kijava says, “I will tell you what Pan and I spoke of, and all the places we went together. But we agreed to wait.”

“That’s alright,” says Will, hoarsely. “I’m worn out now, with all this crying and talking.”

Kijava brushes her cheek against Will’s, gives him a quick lick, and jumps off the bed. “Sleep then.” She says, and trots away.

Will sleeps and dreams of Lyra.

\---

He becomes a doctor, in the end. His mother has passed away, and so Will has all the time in the world to devote to it, to making the world a better place, like Lyra would have wanted him to. He does research too, into cures for diseases.

The ache of Lyra remains sharp, even after all those years, but only when he presses on the wound by thinking of her. When he does not and goes about his day, it is dull pain, and that he can ignore. But he does not forget her, and whenever he starts to doubt himself, he has Kirjava to remind him that it was all real, that he met the love of his life all those years ago.

He tries to date, he really does. Lyra said after all that they could get married if they ever met someone else that they love. But he is a hard man to love, he knows that. Lyra, with her stubborn large heart managed, but he cannot open up to them the way he opened to Lyra, and Kijava hates them, hates them all, hisses when he returns to her smelling of perfume or with lipstick on his cheeks.

So he does not marry and he stops dating too, at last, but wonders if Lyra will marry. She had such a heart for love, for she loved all her friends dearly, and Will most of all. He cannot bring himself to picture her with someone else. Will knows that she will be beautiful by now, perhaps not in the same way as Mrs. Coulter had been, but still beautiful, and so many are bound to love her. And it’s selfish of him to wish that she would refuse them all and think of him the way he thinks of her as his only love, but he can’t help hoping. Surely no one will be able to touch Pan the way he had, and he thinks, was it not his touch that caused Pan to settle? No one else can claim to that, no matter how much they might love Lyra. Kirjava purrs smugly at his feet and rubs his ankles.

Without a wife and a family, who he visits often enough, he is free to travel, and he sees the world. He travels as much as he can, and thinks everywhere that Lyra would have loved it, would have marveled at it, and probably scoffed at it a bit too. Kirjava accompanies him sometimes, and sometimes she does not, but he is closer to her now, and he does not like to be apart from her, lest he doubt himself and Lyra and everything. 

He keeps in touch with Mary, though he needs her less now, and really only sees her for holidays. When she passes away, it's at a very old age, and by this point she is quite famous and Will is far from the only one at her funeral, but he is the only one who receives the precious oil and seeds. He came to love her, truly, not like Lyra, but in another way, and it hurts to lose her. With his last real connection to his home gone, he travels even more frequently, though Kirjava comes with him more and more often. He always returns for the Midsummer holiday, for his visit with Lyra in the garden. He tells her about his adventures and the things he's doing, and imagines she's doing the same. 

He accomplishes things, and he fails at things, and he learns, and he ages. He dreams of Lyra and of the day they’ll be together again. And Kirjava is at his side through all of it. She purrs as she fades, and he smiles, as he closes his eyes, at the end. He has lived a full life. He knows it. Not by some standards, with no wife and no children, but he has made a difference, and he has done things, and he is satisfied. And then, Will and Kijava together, go to find Lyra and Pan. 


End file.
